In honor of Labor Day, and submitted for reader satisfaction, comes the story of Michelle Duggar, a 42-year-old woman who is now pregnant with her 19th baby. That's right: she's already produced 18 with her 44-year-old husband, Jim Bob. The Tonitown, Arkansas, couple have their own reality TV show set in their 7,000 square foot house, where their home-schooled children serve as caretakers for their younger siblings and helpers for Michelle and Jim Bob to keep the household running smoothly.

Although stunningly fertile by modern Western standards, Mrs. Duggar is far from holding any kind of record for live births; that honor belongs to Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, an 18th Century Russian peasant who gave birth to 69 babies, most in sets of twos and threes, with four sets of quadruplets.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Duggar and her husband are modern-day pioneers in prolific procreation. While the particulars of their religious affiliation are the subject of some debate, they are not Mormons, but instead are Baptists affiliated with a cult known as Gothardism (otherwise sometimes called "Quiverful"), so named for the founder of the movement, Bill Gothard, whose ministry and teachings have been criticized even by mainstream fundamentalist Baptist leaders. Gothard's followers, however, generally dismiss the complex and nuanced issues more mainstream Christian theologians have with the movement's patriarchal, Old Testament-based dogmatism. For their part, the Duggars are delivering for their spiritual leader a new battalion for his desired army of followers, who may, themselves, produce large numbers of children and thereby, after only a few generations, have enough troops to take over the world (or, at the very least, the reality TV genre, which could use a renewal of its dedication to tedium masquerading as story arcs).

Provided, of course, that the men of this army of Gothardites can get off their women long enough to do something useful for a change.



The Dark Wraith will now entertain comments and suggestions on what to do about the extraordinarily difficult problem of dealing with an army of religious zombies who simply cannot keep their loins under control.